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Decline The Great Debate

What are the minimum requirements to be deemed a (non-hyphenated) RPG?

  • Abstraction of characer actions (partial)

  • Abstraction of character actions (total)

  • Character creation

  • Character development (with mutually exclusive choices)

  • Choice & consequence

  • Combat

  • Exploration emphasis

  • Interactive dialogue

  • Itemization

  • Narrative emphasis

  • Non-player character interaction

  • Party creation (100% PC)

  • Party formation (any combination of PC & NPC)


Results are only viewable after voting.

Egosphere

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only 42% for character creation? I thought it'd be one of the only unequivocal elements in defining an RPG. Silly me.
 

Butter

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----- Waterproof definition of an RPG -----
RPG:
3) You actually have to be a tangible character in the game, and the act of playing that character is the main drive of the game. Player and "avatar(s)" must be inseparable.
-----------------------------------------------

3) is needed to differentiate RPGs from "simple" simulations and strategy/tactics games like XCOM/JA/etc. in which you control characters - and they are completely stat driven, might even level up -, but you aren't (usually) one of them. Instead you are some kind of invisible "manager" figure with no stats of your own.
This also disqualifies all blobbers...
:ibelieveincleve:
 

thesheeep

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Actual cRPG have to find a new brand ...
35ephb.jpg
 

deama

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I'll just copy my own post from the other topic, since clearly many here are still confused:

----- Waterproof definition of an RPG -----
RPG:
1) The outcome of an action is not determined by (physical) player skill, but by the character's stats (+RNG often).
2) There needs to be some kind of character growth/levelup/stat increase/etc.
3) You actually have to be a tangible character in the game, and the act of playing that character is the main drive of the game. Player and "avatar(s)" must be inseparable.
-----------------------------------------------

1+2) is kind of the baseline here. If this is not given, your game is simply not an RPG in any shape or form.
3) is needed to differentiate RPGs from "simple" simulations and strategy/tactics games like XCOM/JA/etc. in which you control characters - and they are completely stat driven, might even level up -, but you aren't (usually) one of them. Instead you are some kind of invisible "manager" figure with no stats of your own.
It is also needed to differentiate RPGs from something like Crusader Kings, which undoubtedly has RPG parts, but so much of the gameplay isn't even bound to your current character that it becomes a hybrid (of many things). Same thing with The Sims, which actually seems damn close to a pure RPG at first glance, but you aren't really a character here, instead more of a god-like figure with a voyeuristic interest in that character, as proven by the fact that you remain at some place while your character can be off somewhere entirely else.

Story? Irrelevant. Many RPGs don't even have a story (or it doesn't matter at all for the gameplay).
Character creation? Irrelevant. Many RPGs just give you a predefined char, and as long as that one "grows" in stats... Your ability to identify with a character doesn't matter for any genre definition.
Combat? Irrelevant. While most RPGs use their stats mostly for combat, it is by no means required.

Except for (what do you mean with total/partial?) abstraction of action and some form of character development, all your listed points are irrelevant for being an RPG. They certainly matter for certain sub-genres, but not for the "one to rule them all".

In my opinion the definition of RPG should be quite open. Imagine a closed colletions of features. The game, to qualify as a RPG, should have any combination of at last 50% of those featurs.
That is an entirely useless definition.
Definitions must be clear, strict and exclusive, otherwise they are worthless buzzwords - which is how most devs/players/"journalists" use them, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be better than that.
What about games like Gothic or System shock? By your definition, they can't be considered RPGs because they don't fit rule number 1.
 

thesheeep

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I'll just copy my own post from the other topic, since clearly many here are still confused:

----- Waterproof definition of an RPG -----
RPG:
1) The outcome of an action is not determined by (physical) player skill, but by the character's stats (+RNG often).
2) There needs to be some kind of character growth/levelup/stat increase/etc.
3) You actually have to be a tangible character in the game, and the act of playing that character is the main drive of the game. Player and "avatar(s)" must be inseparable.
-----------------------------------------------
What about games like Gothic or System shock? By your definition, they can't be considered RPGs because they don't fit rule number 1.
Games can be hybrids.
I'd call Gothic an Action-RPG and SS an FPS/RPG.

Btw... shouldn't these two threads be merged? It'll be a bit absurd if the same discussions start in this one now...
 

Incendax

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Absolute minimum? Character Development and Narrative Emphasis.
Character Development to choose a role. Narrative Emphasis to play the role.
Lots of games with shitty narrative emphasis got labeled RPG, and that’s fine. We didn’t have much back in the old days.
 

undecaf

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In its bare basics, I would guess, you'd need fully abstracted character actions (RNG checks across the board, and deterministic checks only when it makes sense that the character is not "trying" to do something) and a narrative of some sort where the playable role has a purpose and its existense makes sense, and where the player has a lot of say in how things go on through his characterbuild of choice. It doesn't need to be anything else but an initial kick forward towards an ambiguous goal with everything in between being based on events the player handles which ever way he can. Everything else in the poll just seems like accessories to richen the experience. Combat, NPC's or itemization are not necessary per say, for example, they're just features - neither above the other - on top of the premise that - if they work according to the base principles of the gameplay as explained - make the end experience more varied.

The game might be about a person shackled to a wall in a doorless and windowless room where the game and its narrative (and conflicts) consist of the characters inner struggles to stay sane, repell the hallucinations and find the reason and purpose of him being there.

Or the character could be a gust of sentient stratospheric wind sent down to earthlevel as a punishment of insubordination by Aiolos, with a mission to establish the relationship between intelligence and nature, and finding the purpose of existence. No talking to anyone, no picking up anything, just physical interaction with the world and the events that are presented, through which the "story" accumulates little by little.

I doubt either of those examples would really make a good or fun RPG as they're largely barebone basics of the principle at work, but "what makes a good RPG" is a different question.
 
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I'm surprised so few people think that character actions need only be partially determined by mechanics. Twitch controls,
Games can be hybrids.
I'd call Gothic an Action-RPG and SS an FPS/RPG.

The intent of this thread was to identify the minimum requirements to be a pure, non-hyphenated, cRPG. If you make a distinction like action, Japanese, or blobber, etc., then it means exceptions are being made. For example, I would say that Fallout I & II, Arcanum, and ToEE are example of "true" cRPGs. They need no qualifier. They merely are RPGs, indisputably. This thread is an attempt to define the essential minimum requirements of what that is.
 

thesheeep

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The intent of this thread was to identify the minimum requirements to be a pure, non-hyphenated, cRPG.
Then maybe you should have put cRPGs in the voting title, as until now I thought we were talking about RPGs, not cRPGs... especially coming from the other thread and thinking this was more of the same :lol:
Anyway, cRPGs are a subset of RPGs - so they have the same things in common, but require even more conditions.
 

Incendax

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Back in the day we didn’t have much in the way of Narrative Emphasis. Kill Foozle or Explore Shit was good enough for us, and those games were genuinely fun. But the guiding light of games like Ultima, Fallout, Pool of Radiance, Starflight, and even stuff like Secret of Mana showed us the narrative emphasis could be so much better.

These days, we don’t tolerate a lack of narrative in our RPGs.
 
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DalekFlay

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Back in the day we didn’t have much in the way of Narrative Emphasis. Kill Foozle or Explore Shit was good enough for us, and those games were genuinely fun. But the guiding light of games like Ultima, Fallout, Pool of Radiance, Starflight, and even stuff like Secret of Mana showed us the narrative emphasis could be so much better.

These days, we don’t tolerate a lack of narrative in our RPGs.

I'm not sure who all we is, but as a method of defining the genre I think narrative is the last thing I'd look to. Any fucking genre can have a strong narrative or a weak narrative. If you said narrative choices then okay maybe, but even then would that make Walking Dead an RPG? Fuck no. I think it has to be mechanics based.
 

Incendax

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I'm not sure who all we is, but as a method of defining the genre I think narrative is the last thing I'd look to. Any fucking genre can have a strong narrative or a weak narrative. If you said narrative choices then okay maybe, but even then would that make Walking Dead an RPG? Fuck no. I think it has to be mechanics based.
I definitely agree that some kind of mechanical character development has to happen, where choices are made that determine how your character will interface with the world. Where I take it a step further is requiring some kind of narrative that shapes your moment to moment choices more than merely wandering around exploring or killing things.

Without both mechanical character development and narrative emphasis, you’re not playing a roleplaying game. You’re just playing a game.
 

Daemongar

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Minimum requirement for an rpg: hit points. That's about it.
 

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